


The Curious Messrs. Campbell

by BlindSwandive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Atypical kink dynamics, Cookies for the historical reader, Corsetry, Demon Blood Addict Sam Winchester, Demonic Possession, Gaslighting/Lying to the victim, M/M, POV Outsider, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sam Winchester Wears a Corset, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, The Winchesters are the Campbells, power games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlindSwandive/pseuds/BlindSwandive
Summary: It was quietly believed that the famed mediums, the Campbell brothers, weren't related at all, and that they only posed as siblings to excuse their strange closeness.But their new maid was starting to believe that they encouraged the rumor that they weren't related for the very same reason.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 44
Kudos: 157
Collections: 2019 Supernatural & CWRPF Holiday Exchange, SPN J2 Xmas Exchange





	The Curious Messrs. Campbell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quickreaver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickreaver/gifts).



> A gift for the awesome [Quickreaver](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/quickreaver) for [Secret Santa!](https://spn-j2-xmas.livejournal.com/) I loved your prompts and likes and I really hope this gives you some joy. <3
> 
> Many thanks to my super lovely girlfriend [Wings](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/wings_of_crows) for beta and brainstorming even during the busy holidays. <3

It was rumored that the Campbell brothers weren't related at all, and that they only posed as siblings to excuse their strange closeness.

But Dorcas was starting to believe that they encouraged the rumor for the very same reason.

Dorcas had always been a housemaid to ladies, but when the agency sent her to the two gentlemen in Lily Dale she hadn't questioned it. Not questioning her assignments (or her betters, or their orders) was one of the things that recommended her so highly, said Mrs. Agate, though she said it in such a way as meant she had better keep doing so or Dorcas would wish she had. Mrs. Agate had a way of paying compliments so they felt ominous.

Dorcas didn't pay her much mind. She kept to herself naturally, and maybe her sister was right about how she lacked curiosity, but she didn't much need it if Mrs. Agate was going to keep sending her along to the queerest homes in New York. She couldn't imagine digging for anything curiouser than what she already saw in the course of her employment. Once, she'd been a maid for a pair of spinster sisters who kept pythons, and had had to gather the shed skins up for the elder to sew. She'd also been a maid for a woman who bathed in milk, except for when she bathed in blood, and Dorcas had had to visit farms and butchers both to keep her washed. _And_ scrub out the tub afterwards. Curiosity was overrated.

It had been Mrs. Agate who had told her that the Campbell 'brothers' were nothing of the sort, but that they valued discretion on that matter and would pay handsomely for it. She'd warned Dorcas they were mediums of some description as well, but Mrs. Agate didn't put any stock in that sort of nonsense either. She had the good grace to apologize for sending Dorcas into such a den of iniquity, but as Dorcas' mother was ill, Mrs. Agate knew she'd value the increase in salary. Dorcas only said, "Thank you, ma'am," and accepted her papers. She couldn't imagine she'd see anything queerer than the snake women, after all.

One week into her employment and she had already begun to have her doubts.

Messrs. Campbell had their stage names, and it was on her papers and on her checks, and the tall one had even used them very carefully and deliberately when he'd welcomed her in and made introductions. But that was the last time she heard those names, and she soon forgot. When one asked her to fetch the other, he invariably only called him for "my brother." And when they were alone, when she could hear them through the walls or while she passed mouselike through the narrow corridors of their home, they used other names entirely.

As she only ever called them "Mr. Campbell," she supposed she wouldn't be caught out any time soon. So long as no one called on just one of the men, she'd be fine. Very few calls were made on them at all, as it was, apart from their spiritualist meetings.

When they were alone, the tall one was called Sam or Sammy. She supposed he would be Samuel—it seemed every man she met these days was called Samuel if he wasn't called John or Joseph—but he had long lovely hair pulled back into a smooth tail, so she privately thought of him as Samson and even prayed once he should never meet a Delilah who would cut it off. He'd been the one who'd welcomed her and been so kind, looked at her with the softest eyes. Dorcas wasn't prone to flights of fancy, but she'd felt a little flutter in her chest when he'd taken her hand and said how pleased he was to meet her and seemed to mean it down deep in his heart.

The other was called Dean. He had looked at her with the hardest eyes, wary and warning, while his brother had held her hand. She knew, now, that he could look just as soft as Samson—but only when looking at his brother. She'd caught brief glimpses again and again, when he thought neither she nor Sam could see; a look like nothing so much as young love, all flowers and clutched handkerchiefs. She had to look away not to blush.

Some time during her second week, she discovered that Samson could have eyes as hard as they'd been soft, too; queerly, also while looking at his brother. She supposed that was a kind of balance.

Dorcas's duties included cleaning and preparing and serving simple meals, but not aiding in dressing the gentlemen as she would have the ladies. She had supposed they must each take care of it alone until one evening when they were meant to host one of their spiritualist events, and she heard a peculiar grunting coming from the dressing chamber that communicated between their bedrooms. She hadn't meant to look—she knew better, after all—but the fine white gloves Samson wore for the events had needed a bit of ink taken out of the fingertips and now that they were crisp and fresh again she'd only meant to return them to the dressing chamber, and the door into it from Samson's bedroom had been quite open.

She knew Sam to be very slim, in spite of his broad shoulders, but in the dressing chamber he was becoming slimmer still, impossibly sleek through the middle, as Dean was lacing him tightly into a corset. It was clearly bespoke, with none of the enforced curves that shifted with the fancy of the season in ladies' undergarments, just a clean and smooth silhouette to pinch him in even narrower where he was already quite trim.

Dean's hands pulled the laces of the garment brutally tight, and with far more ease than Dorcas had ever had when she'd had to do the same for her mistresses. But where her mistresses had mostly looked pained or else held up with stoic good grace, she could just see Samson's face in the mirror, his eyes trained on his brother's reflection behind him. His face was strange and hard, his eyes boring into his brother's, defiant, as though daring him to be just a little rougher, and Dean, rapt and breathless, ever obliged. She left the gloves neatly on the end of Samson's bed and left, but she heard both men groan, strangled and satisfied, as she did.

***

For the spiritualist events, which were held once or twice weekly, Dorcas laid trays of small pastries and filled decanters of brandy and wine, arranged chairs and tables in the seance room, and took coats and scarves and furs from the guests as they arrived. In her third week, a peculiar man arrived about an hour ahead of the scheduled seance and demanded to see Samuel, and it wasn't until she'd shown him into the sitting room and gone to fetch him that she realized he hadn't asked for Allan or Charles or whatever he was meant to be called.

Samson—Samuel, she supposed—had begun to look rather pale and drawn over the last few days, she fancied, and when she announced that a strange man was awaiting him in the parlor, his eyes had gone wide and queer and he'd asked her to show him to Sam's own bedroom immediately, and to fetch him his flasks and funnel and tubing from the kitchen. She'd done as she was told.

When she returned with the asked for items, she found Dean waiting in the hallway, as if guarding Sam's door. "Not a word," he warned, and with that, opened the door that she might set down her burden, and shooed her out again just as fast.

She saw them for barely more than an instant, but Dorcas still woke for a week after with nightmares of the strange man's eyes turning beetle black, while Sam took a sharp knife to the man's uncovered wrist. She tried very hard not to let her fancies get the better of her, but any time she saw Sam drink from one of his flasks, thereafter, she couldn't help but think they must be full of blood.

***

The strange man came once a month or more and on his second visit introduced himself to Dorcas as Asura. She curtsied and tried not to make eye contact—she couldn't bear to see his eyes in case they might be black as she was now sure she must have only imagined—but he kissed her hand and spoke sweetly to her and did not ask for Sam, and seemed generally quite uninterested in letting her leave. She eventually, flustered, fled, apologizing and promising to fetch her master for him, and he laughed quite unkindly in her wake. When Sam asked her to fetch the man back, she was sure she must have gone quite pale, because Dean interjected that she should fetch the supplies and he would "see to the damned demon."

Mr. Asura had removed his coat and was rolling up his shirt sleeve when she returned with the flasks and tube and funnel, and when he made a sly comment about how she might join them for a spot of laudanum after, she made the mistake of glancing up. She was _quite_ sure his eyes went black as night as he winked at her.

"Azur," Sam had said, and sharply, the knife now somehow under the man's chin quicker than thinking, "you know our arrangement. You deal with me and no one else."

Dean had been the one to give her a softer look, then, exposed and embarrassed, and ushered her out. She fancied he was the one what looked drawn and tired, now. She supposed he didn't care for Mr. Asura very much either, and she didn't know about the laudanum but he took very heavily of brandy that night.

***

The messrs. Campbell tended toward some very queer moods, together or one at a time, and after the little incident with Mr. Asura, Dean had gone very quiet for some days. The day before they were meant to have their next seance, not an hour after she'd brought Sam his kit of heroin and Dean a new decanter of brandy in the parlor, she overheard snatches of a heated conversation, no doubt fueled by the same. She didn't intend to listen—she even took her mending a little further into the kitchen to block it out—but at his loudest Dean was quite clearly yelling about Mr. Asura (or Azur, as the gentlemen tended to call him), about not needing him, about hating what he did to Sam. She was about to take her mending to her room to shut the door, when Dean shouted, "Dorcas!" loud enough she dropped her thimble. She smoothed her apron and scurried in with a curtsy while he was still busy seething at Sam (she rather thought he said, "until you remember who you belong to," but decided against trying to make sense of that).

"Make up two gallons of brine and fetch the rod from my bedroom," Dean ordered, but never took his eyes, red and shot with blood, off of his brother.

She hazarded a glance at Sam, who made no disagreement but only gazed levelly back at his brother.

Not knowing what better to do, she did as she was told.

Dorcas brought the pail of brine in, but she was certain her face would never come clean of the flush.

"Right here in the parlor?" Sam asked, dry. He was lounging back on the settee, but he had removed his jacket and was even now unbuttoning his waistcoat.

"Wherever I damn well say," Dean snapped. 

Dorcas ran to fetch the rod, now not entirely sure she mightn't feel it herself if she were to set off the elder Campbell.

Dorcas knew, in theory, that the man of the house had the right to discipline everyone in it, from his family to his servants to his wards, and she supposed that must extend to younger siblings, but if Mrs. Agate was right and they weren't brothers, she wasn't sure what you would call this. Surely no man, however peculiar, should let another birch him if it weren't his due. Quite unusually, she wished she could ask her sister—the one with the curiosity—if she'd ever heard of such a thing, but she put it stubbornly out of mind. That way trouble lay.

Dean's bedroom was warm in a way Sam's wasn't, with the plushest armchair in the house, a lusher duvet, and thick dark velvet around the windows and bedposts. There was even some odd pelt she couldn't recognize spread out before his hearth, as though for sitting cozy by the fire. Surely she had noticed the birch rod before—no home was without one, whether it were a genuine threat to the family and servants or not—but now that she drew it down from its place, it seemed more sinister somehow, springy and supple from good care, exceedingly well made. She thought at a guess there must be at least twenty fine lengths of birch or willow each as long as her arm, leafless and with only the tiniest ridges and knots, the wood pale and grey from the good brining that would give it a longer life and a wickeder sting. The long strands of wood were wound together with the loveliest dark ribbon, and Dorcas found her fingers running reverently over it. It was a very fine object to hold, but would be fearsome to receive.

Samuel looked like a threat incarnate, awaiting it. The soft-eyed man who had welcomed her in that first day seemed totally alien to this creature, and suddenly the idea that he communed with spirits and read minds and performed such manner of frightening miracles seemed not so far fetched. At that moment if he had so much as glanced at the birch she shouldn't have wondered if it caught fire. 

Dorcas meant only to slip into the parlor, set the wicked end of the birch in the brine, and slip back out, but Dean stopped her exit, though he was now also without his jacket and waistcoat as he rolled his shirtsleeves. His brother had stripped his shoes and shirt and stood only in his trousers and stocking feet! Dorcas endeavored to look no further forward or upward of her own apron.

"Draw the hottest bath you can," Dean said, and she needed not look up to know he was staring at Sam again, instead of her. "There's a basket above the tub; add two cups of the salts and two measures from the brown bottle."

Sam let out a soft snort, and Dean growled, " _Three_ measures."

Dorcas curtsied and fled, but she saw from the corner of her eye that Sam was unbuckling his trousers as well.

Even from the bathroom, even over the running water (and what a luxurious change that was over the endless pans of hot water—or milk, or blood—she had carried at less well appointed homes!), she could hear the whistle and crack of the birch rod when they began. She tried not to listen, but the sharpness carried, and more than once as it landed, over and over, she found she jolted in sympathy. 

She measured the salts as directed and wondered whether their fame at soothing aches would be any comfort next to the burn they would flush into broken skin. The brown bottle contained some thick elixir she could not name, but it was surely an antiseptic, and would surely burn as badly as the salts, as its harsh, medicinal scent stung her nostrils and made her eyes water even as she held it as far away from her face as she could. Though it should banish any danger of infection, she shouldn't wonder if the cure hurt worse than the punishment.

Dorcas filled the tub a little higher than strictly she ought, but she didn't relish hearing the sound of the whipping unmuffled by the water. She could scarce believe it hadn't ended, that Dean hadn't worn out the rod entirely on Sam's body.

When she reluctantly closed off the tap, she heard beneath the cracking a faint layer of overlapping grunts and groans. That Sam was not howling outright seemed impossible; Dorcas herself hissed at only trying to stir the scalding water to dissolve the salts, and crept to the kitchen for a long wooden spoon instead, carefully training her eyes on the floor that she might not see the men at their task.

She still glimpsed Dean as she passed in the hallway, buttons undone and hair and eyes wild, as he flayed his brother with the birch rod, now finally beginning to shatter over Sam's broad body where it was entirely bare but for the curious pendant he wore beneath his clothes. Sam for his part was stretched long against a tall cabinet, hands grasping the top and skin glistening all over with sweat and fine faint lines of blood. It was barely a moment that she saw them, but the image burned bright in her mind after.

The steam rose thick and heavy from the bath and stung her eyes, but Dorcas stared determinedly into the water as she stirred, trying to blot out the image. Consequently, when the two men staggered through the door, she nearly leapt clear of her skin. Sam was as naked as a jaybird, slumped against his brother, and she gaped, scandalized, for an inappropriately long moment before Dean snapped at her to help.

Dorcas rushed to comply, awkwardly helping Dean arrange Sam at the edge of the tub, bracing his legs while Dean lowered him into the water. Sam arched violently when his back touched the water, letting out a groan as his face twisted in a rictus of agony and—and something else. She shushed him softly without thinking, tears pricking up in sympathy, and also from the medicinal steam.

Sam struggled in the water, his eyes open but glazed, delirious, and Dorcas was reminded of the fever that took her uncle. With no orders, she fetched a small cloth to wet under the cool tap at the sink, but when she came to lay it over his forehead, she let out a small quailing cry to see Dean holding Sam below the surface, hands at his neck.

"M-mister Campbell!" she stammered, sure that murder could not be done by a man whatever his place in the household, but she couldn't seem to get her body to move to intercede. But Dean only held Sam under a few moments more before pulling him back, gasping, above the surface, cradling his neck and the back of his head against the enameled tub with one hand. He spared her the briefest glance for her outburst, looking barely less dazed than his brother, and took the damp cloth from her hand.

Sam had stopped writhing, and now only panted shallowly, but his face went soft and still when the cool cloth touched his forehead.

She hadn't been dismissed, so Dorcas hovered, trying not to let her eyes drift to the distinctly male parts of the anatomy on display in the clear water, but when some long minutes passed with no orders, she slipped quietly out. The last she saw, Dean was staring, all softness, down at his brother's placid face, fingers tracing over his hair.

***

Sam had what Dean referred to obliquely as "a condition" but which was called on their fancy advertisements "A Power Beyond Comprehension!" and Dorcas wasn't sure which was more accurate. She had surely heard the gasps and excited gossip as guests left their seances and meetings attesting to wondrous talents when he went into a trance, but she had also been mysteriously barred from Samuel's bedroom for hours on end only to be called in to help when Dean was at wits' end, and then she found the younger Winchester in some kind of fit. Sometimes it was a stillness like death with wide, empty eyes that no restorative could relieve; sometimes it came with convulsions and violent thrashing; once she was sure he was speaking in tongues and rattling objects about the room impossibly, the lovely wooden cross knocking clear from the far wall, and she quite lost her head until Dean caught her up and shook her once soundly to bring her back to herself. (She had still fully intended to race for the priest but he forbade it explicitly and she was forced to suffice with quiet prayer while she helped him lash his brother down until the violence subsided.)

Dorcas had swept away all signs of the birching she could, but Sam stayed so late abed the next day she feared he had fallen into one of the fits. She had just resolved to find where Dean had got to, to ask if she ought prepare to turn the evening's guests away as they arrived, when Sam emerged with a much chastened demeanor, placid and gentle, a soft quilt wrapped around his shoulders. Dean followed on his heels, but disappeared down the hall. She thought he was carrying the salve from the medicine chest. 

Dorcas rushed to set out the remains of breakfast for Sam but he very kindly asked her not to bother as he had no appetite, only to prepare a fresh pail of brine if she had not saved the pail from the previous night, and he slipped out quietly into the garden. Perplexed, she did as she was told, but made a pot of tea alongside, and when he had not returned by the time it was ready, she set about preparing the seance room for the evening.

When she came back to the kitchen to fill the decanters, she found Sam had returned and was seated at the small table where she ate her meals and cut vegetables, carefully arranging fresh shoots of river birch and trimming them to length. The expression on his face was so soft and reverent she could scarcely bear to look, but it was quite as hard to look away again when she did; the quilt had slipped as well, showing his back was bare beneath, gleaming with salve over an endless criss-crossing of fine red stripes where his skin had broken. 

She resolved to work as quickly as she could and leave him to his task, but nearly bumped into Dean as she made for the brandy. She fancied he looked softer, too, satisfied and calm. As with the night before, he addressed her, but his eyes drifted too soon to his brother over her shoulder.

"Dorcas," he said, "we've come to a decision. Haven't we, little brother?"

Sam made a soft "Mm" of assent from behind her.

"If Azur drops in," Dean went on, "doesn't matter who he asks for—you come get me, understood?"

She allowed half a moment for Sam to object, but when he made no sound, she nodded. "Yes, Mr. Campbell."

"Good girl. And you don't show him back—he can wait in the parlor for me to come to him, so long as my brother isn't already in there. And if he is," Dean added, "Azur can wait in the damn foyer."

Dorcas nodded promptly. "Yes, sir."

Dean let her get back to the decanters, then, and strolled over to where Sam was sitting, leaning over his back as if to inspect his work. Dorcas tried not to look at them as she finished, but she glimpsed Sam tenderly wrapping the handle of the new birch rod in black velveteen ribbon when she fled.

***

The next time Mr. Asura came to visit, Dorcas did as instructed, though the awful man's face twisted when she returned with Dean instead of Sam. Dean had her fetch the flasks and tubing as usual, and Mr. Asura did roll his shirt sleeve up for the knife, but he gave a look of such seething she feared for her master and dared not go from earshot in case some violence were to take place. She recited her prayers silently in an effort not to hear their conversation, but the refrain from the night of the birching—that Sam was Dean's and not Mr Asura’s—was certainly a theme. Mr. Asura left in a huff when they finished, not waiting to be shown out and slamming the door behind.

Still, it was more peaceful than the time after that; that time, Mr. Asura was shown out at the point of Dean's pistol. She did not expect to see him again.

One day in late October, however, Mr. Asura came to the door, and before she could fetch her masters, he insisted that he did not mean to stay, and pled for her to come help him with the packages he'd left in his carriage for her masters. She wished for deliverance from stepping out of doors with him without chaperone, but seeing no appropriate way around it, she followed him, and after that she remembered nothing at all.

When Dorcas awoke, it was to her face being splashed with water, and a din of voices. She was tied to a chair, with no memory of how she had gotten there, but she had the distinct impression she had been thrashing; she was chafed wherever there was rope. She was dizzy and terribly disoriented. What was more, there was a terrible sour taste in her mouth and smell about like rotten eggs, and she was sore all over. Dean was hovering over her, first shouting, then asking her the queerest questions, and it was at a guess at least twenty minutes before Samuel interceded on her behalf. There was some quiet argument between them then, but afterwards, both seemed satisfied, and they cut her free of her bonds. 

Falling Sickness was known to be contagious, so when Dorcas could not find the thread between stepping out into the garden and waking in the kitchen, she was quite convinced she had caught the dread condition from the younger Campbell. The brothers argued on in hushed voices while she tried to gather herself up; both looked as though they had been hit about the face and were quite disheveled. They looked as though they must be quite as sore as she felt. 

Her ribs screamed agony at her, and when she reached a hand to the focus of the pain, she could feel over what must be a mighty bruise that she was wearing neither corset nor chemise beneath her dress and was taken with a terrible chill of fear. She almost resolved to leave the employ of the Campbells right then, for she could think of no respectable reason she should have less clothing on now than she'd had in the morning, but when she tried to stand, she fell to the floor.

"What..." she began, unsure what exactly she meant to ask, but Dean stooped and gathered her up like a child in his arms to carry her to her bed.

"How—" she began again, then tried, "Why—" but Sam patted her hand gently and Dean shushed her. 

They both looked guilty, uncertain, but when Dean spoke it was with a firm tone that brooked no argument. He explained she'd had a fit and become a danger to herself and to them, and had had to be restrained. The shards of broken ceramic and glass and splintered wood littering the kitchen seemed to support this statement.

When she finally dared ask, flushed and mortified, what had happened to her undergarments, that seemed to puzzle Dean, but Sam looked stricken.

"Dorcas," he asked very gravely, "what's the last thing you remember?" 

"I went to help Mr. Asura with his packages," she said, uneasily. The men exchanged a look over her head.

"When was that?" Dean asked, laying her down on her bed. It was unmade; Dorcas could not imagine why. She made it every morning on rising.

"I think it was going on eleven in the morning," she said, frowning. "Did he not come inside after?"

Sam took a moment, then asked very gently, "What day was that?" 

"Tuesday," Dorcas said, feeling quite faint. "Tuesday, the 22nd of October," she added, when neither responded. "What—may I ask, what day is it now, sirs?"

Dean sat heavily in the chair near the bed and rubbed his face. "Christ," he swore, and Dorcas blushed.

"You've been—ill," Sam stammered, "very ill," but he was the one who looked pale. He left her room abruptly to rattle about in the kitchen.

"What day, Mr. Campbell?" Dorcas asked again, a little frightened to know the answer now.

"Wednesday," Dean said, and seemed for all the world ashamed. 

Dorcas thought that wasn't so long as illness went, but Dean looked down and went on. "Wednesday, the 14th of November. You've been—sick—for three weeks."

Stunned, she accepted the glass of water Samuel brought, but needed his help lifting it, so weak was she. Dorcas felt over her ribs again, and thought they were much nearer the surface than they'd been; she wondered if she had eaten much in that time at all, wondered if the gentlemen had really cared for her so long while she slept or raved or thrashed though she was only their menial. It would explain the poor job of dressing her—what man, after all, would know how to dress his maid? Even if Dean might be the rare man who knew how to lace a corset.

Had she really been ill so long, and amnesiatic of the whole thing?

Sam was in and out of her room half a dozen times over the next hour, fetching aspirin, cleaning stray cuts over her hands and face and forearms, fetching cheese and bread, making up the fire in her tiny hearth. She tried to rise twice or more, but Dean, who sat vigil, finally barked at her to stay still and rest, and she dared not argue. And as soon as the fire had warmed the room, she sank back into sleep.

Another three days passed in much that way, with one man or the other always watching over her. They spoke little when they knew her to be awake, but freely (if strangely) if her eyes were closed as she drifted in and out of sleep and strange dreams. Little of it made sense, but Dorcas supposed that was the fatigue at work. 

They spoke of Mr. Asura, of whether he was yet a danger, of whether he was secure, of whether they were safe; Dean insisted he had it under control, and there was such menace in his tone she hoped she'd never see him challenged on the point. "Swear to God I'll take care of you, Sammy," he said, once, "get you what you need." If Sam responded, it was only in their mingled sighs.

They spoke of Dorcas, too, of whether they ought to have known (what, they didn't say), of whether she was truly well, of what they ought to tell her and whether they ought to tell her anything at all. She tried not to worry on that too much.

One evening when she was still confined to bed, Sam reading by candle beside her, Dean came in and Sam apparently judged her asleep. 

"Were you able to get it?" he asked quietly.

Dean grunted an affirmative. "Fought, but I managed."

Sam sighed relief. "Thank God," he said. And after a moment, "Well?"

"I'm hanging onto it," Dean said, sounding quite stubborn and set on the thing.

"Dean," Sam sighed, for his part long-suffering. 

"That was the agreement," Dean argued, "if you're going to keep—doing it, you get it from me."

"Fine," Sam snapped, and his chair scraped, a new looming shadow cutting in and out of the light from her eyelids, "then this is me getting it from you."

Dorcas shifted, rolling away from the changing light, and both men hushed. She didn't wish to interrupt them, but they mightn't want her to hear them argue, either. After a long, tense moment, they took their disagreement into the hall, and she fell back into fitful sleep.

***

Dorcas carefully marked the progress of hours and days for weeks after she returned to her duties, always a little scared she might lose time, and fearing further she might be dismissed as unfit to serve. It took as long to repair the damages she had apparently done in her fit, mending or replacing a great deal day by day. She worked very diligently (not that she had ever been lazy about it), but while the gentlemen seemed to watch her more closely now when she came near to serve or dust or tend the fire, Sam assured her quietly one day before breakfast that her position was safe, and it was a great weight off her mind. They seemed also somehow protective, aiding her in heavier tasks while she recovered, asking after her wellness, and banning her entirely from any of the hard work in the cold of the garden, now that snow was falling. They even went so far as to padlock the garden shed against her and only went into it when she was well engaged in other duties indoors. (Why they had painted the odd red pattern over the door she couldn't fathom, and did not ask.) For a full month, one or the other went about her shopping with her, rather than send her alone. Perhaps concerned for his role in her illness, Sam even asked her to join him in prayers every so often, his Latin as fine as a priest's.

It took some weeks, but eventually, life settled back more or less to normal. Whatever the cause or cure, Dorcas had no more fits. Mr. Asura didn't come by the cottage again, either, but Dean would still have her fetch the flasks and tubes once a week or so, and leave the cottage with them in his arms.

***

The seances went on as usual, Sam's miracles not waning, though he seemed to be having fewer fits himself. He rarely grew so pale nor burned so bright as he had in her first months with them, though the gentlemen's queer moods and disagreements went on much as they had. Whatever the cause of the haler health, she hoped the effect would extend to her as well, if she had indeed caught his disease.

One day in late November, when Dorcas meant to soak the Christmas pudding in brandy, she found she needed to fetch the bottle from the parlor where Dean had absconded with it, and she stumbled across one of their disagreements. Dean was backed flush against the tall cabinet, this time, Sam's forearm pressed into his throat to pin him there, and for all Dorcas had realized Sam was taller, he seemed now to loom enormous and threatening.

"Now," he said, and it was like a growl.

"Sammy," Dean tried, placating, but the sound cut off under the weight of Sam's arm.

Dorcas backed carefully into the hall to wait them out.

"Dean," Sam said, and it had a soft lilt to it, "I need it and you're going to give it to me."

He must have eased on his brother's throat, because she heard Dean speak then, gravelly and low, and it was an echo of Sam the night of the birching: "Right here in the parlor?" he asked, and she fancied there was a tinge of play in his tone.

"Wherever I damn well say," Sam said, and there was such heat in it she blushed heavily. They said no more, but the cabinet creaked under the weight of them.

She supposed the brandy would wait.

***

When Christmastime came, Dorcas expected some change in visitors or else travel—surely the gentlemen must have some sort of family—but they kept it a quite private day. Samuel brought in boughs of holly and ivy from the garden though he otherwise seemed uninterested in the trappings of the season, but Dean hung a suspicious number of sprigs of mistletoe around the cottage. Dorcas was only caught out once by accident and accepted a chaste kiss on the cheek from Dean, who seemed equally surprised by the turn of events he had arranged, but game. She wrote her mother (omitting the tale of her curious illness) and sent home as much of her pay as she could, and on Christmas day she stuffed and roasted a goose and chestnuts for the men. The plum pudding was especially fine and Dean, quite heavily in his brandy, toasted her warmly for it.

While she served, Dean regaled Sam with memories of the Christmases of their youth together, prodding the oddly glum man determinedly toward cheer, and Dorcas was struck anew that Mrs. Agate must be mistaken, or else the gentlemen had grown up at very least in the same household, as near to brothers as made no great difference. Samuel slowly, reluctantly let Dean talk him into a mug of cider with a generous splash of liquor, and by the time they had finished eating, his cheeks and nose were quite pink and he was laughing more easily than she had ever seen.

Dorcas bustled away the dishes while she expected the gentlemen would retire to the parlor, but Samuel instead followed her to the kitchen and presented her a small box. She thanked him, surprised, but he shook his head and smiled, embarrassed, retreating before she could open it.

Inside was a pendant like she had seen on each of the Campbells, a round wooden coin on a cord with a curious pattern burnished into the surface. There was a strange star inside a circle that she expected was meant to be the sun, from the rays that came off of it. In the box also was a note asking her to wear it always, most especially when there were visitors, and a suggestion it could keep her safe. It was signed "Messrs Campbell."

Dorcas was puzzled but obediently put the cord around her neck and made to return to the parlor to thank them both, but spied the men together at the edge of the hallway under one of Dean's sprigs of mistletoe, pressed close in a passionate embrace. She backed quietly into the kitchen.

As Dorcas made herself up a plate from the leftover food to sup, she reflected she ought to feel quite scandalized at seeing the deviance on such open display, but it didn't come. She supposed she must be inured to it by now. And when Dean, tipsy, asked her to make up the fire in his room only to drag Sam down onto the pelt beside him in front of it, she felt an odd touch of fondness for the peculiar men and retired, content, to her room.

***

The Campbell brothers traveled to Europe once or twice a year, so Dorcas came into a few weeks of leave at the new year. Once she had had some days home to look after her mother, Mrs. Agate invited her to tea, purportedly to ask after her health, but after no more than fifteen minutes of pleasantries, she seemed to be overcome by her own curiosity. Strange, for all she condemned the trait. 

"So, Dorcas," Mrs. Agate asked, "what do you say? Your masters: are they brothers or," here she lowered her voice to a scandalized whisper, "deviants?" 

Dorcas looked into the delicate china cup in her hand. She rather thought they were both but she dared not say it aloud. "I shouldn't like to speculate, ma'am. It isn't my place."

"Yes, yes, of course," Mrs. Agate agreed, but waved a hand dismissively. "But just between us, my girl, I must know; is it as they say? Are they too close for brothers?"

Dorcas stirred her tea and considered her answer carefully. "Yes, ma'am; I should think they are."

**Author's Note:**

> Historical cookies time:  
> -Samuel was one of the most common names of the Victorian era; it was the 9th most popular name for boys born in 1850.  
> -Allan Campbell and Charles Shourds (aka Charles Campbell) were almost certainly not brothers, but were real historical figures in Lily Dale, NY, who held seances and other spiritualist events. Allan performed feats that have not yet been conclusively explained. In the context of _Supernatural,_ he could be assumed to either have had powers or have been, along with his partner, a very talented grifter. Much like another duo we know.  
> -Allan Campbell's 'spirit helper' was called Azur. "Asura" roughly translates to demon in Sanskrit.  
> -Birch rods—which were really bundles of any fine, narrow stems regardless of the tree type—did exist in most homes, whether or not they were used. They are whence the saying, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." Soaking them in brine extended their lifespan (which would otherwise rarely be more than one birching) and in theory made them harder, but also increased the sting if the skin broke by lightly salting the wound. It also may have somewhat reduced the chance of infection.  
> -Indoor plumbing to a tub, a sink, and a toilet was relatively new and luxurious in a private home.  
> -"Falling Sickness" is one of the terms historically used for epilepsy, and for a long time people believed it was transmissible—that even witnessing seizures could cause someone to develop epilepsy. It was also considered a sign of bad character and criminal behavior.


End file.
